


Plants and Pastries

by AClever_Username



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: An angel and a demon being oblivious idiots, First Kiss, Fluff, Humour, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Post Armagedidn't, Shameless cute-ness and adorable fluff, They sort of co-parent a plant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 06:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19900957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AClever_Username/pseuds/AClever_Username
Summary: Aziraphale loves cake. Crowley loves seeing Aziraphale love cake.Though he does have a Bone To Pick about Aziraphale's treatment of his plants.Crowley stalks around being idiotic and in love (standard procedure), and Aziraphale hatches a plan.





	Plants and Pastries

The day was gloomy, because it was London, a city incapable of being anything but grey. If it wasn’t the clouds it was the exhaust fumes. But one particular shop window gleamed bright as Crowley passed it by.

He stopped, ignoring the mutters of _‘just stop then mate’_ and a couple of stray middle fingers, and moved closer to the window of the patisserie. It was positively bulging with cake – flaky pastry, cream, strawberries covered in a thick glaze, rather extortionate little price tags.

Now, Crowley didn’t particularly care for French pastries, but knew an angel who did. An angel who would relish the mille-feuille with the perfectly feathered icing in particular.

Therefore, of course, Crowley had absolutely no choice but to buy it (and a tart, and an éclair, and a couple of little macarons, because he’d decided that he couldn’t arrive with just the _one_ cake now could he?), loudly exclaiming to anyone inside the shop who would listen (and also everyone who _didn’t_ want to, seeing as he was being Quite Loud) how utterly thoughtless it was of them to put cakes on display knowing full well he’d just _have_ to buy them and spend the full day sharing them with a friend. Internally he dismissed the half-formed excuse he’d spent the first half of his walk to Aziraphale’s conjuring and replaced it with ‘cakes.’

He’d not moved beyond ‘cakes’ by the time he swung open the doors to the bookshop, spotting Aziraphale perched behind the counter. Aziraphale looked up from a book, startled, his glasses slipping just a little down his nose.

“Cakes!” Crowley announced, by way of introduction, because he _Really Hadn’t Thought Further Than That._

Aziraphale didn’t need more than that. His face lit up, and the book was closed as decisively as Aziraphale would dare to handle any book.

“Oh Crowley, you shouldn’t have,” he said, sliding from behind the counter and plucking the glasses from his face, tucking them away in his pocket. He made his way over to the door.

“Of course I should have, we’re celebrating.”

Aziraphale turned back from locking the door, “we are?”

“Yep,” Crowley said, popping the p, “for surviving the apocalypse that wasn’t.”

“That was months ago,” Aziraphale said, but he was already leading Crowley to the back room.

“Then we’re celebrating the two-month _anniversary_ of Armagedidn’t.”

Aziraphale sent him a withering look, but Crowley spared his one brain cell from trying desperately to think of more unbelievable-at-best excuses by cracking open the pastry box, and _very_ successfully distracting Aziraphale.

“Oh well in that case,” Aziraphale murmured, fetching the plates he kept on hand just in case of unexpected cake. And also for biscuits. Aziraphale _always_ had some Digestives somewhere.

Crowley put the box down on the table and settled himself on the sofa. Literally, _on_ the sofa, as he sat on the back and propped his feet on the cushions, folding his fingers together and resting them under his chin.

He watched as Aziraphale made himself comfortable in the armchair and considered the pastries, hand hovering briefly over each, eventually selecting the perfectly stacked mille-feuille that had originally caught Crowley’s eye. Crowley resigned himself to being ignored for a little while. Aziraphale didn’t mean to ignore him, but the angel always approached everything with his undivided attention, _especially_ if it was in any way edible. It made for a considerable portion of Crowley’s time spent simply waiting for Aziraphale.

Crowley didn’t mind, (except for the fact that Aziraphale tended to lose track of time, and they would be really rather late and miss the start of _Pointless_ if Aziraphale didn’t eat those last four bites just a _little_ faster). Aziraphale tended to bluster furiously under Crowley’s gaze normally, fixing this that and the other with his already perfect bowtie or waistcoat. Crowley could get away with a wondrous amount of staring when Aziraphale was eating.

Crowley pushed his glasses up into his hair and hid a smile as Aziraphale took his first bite, and proceeded to look ridiculously bewildered as all the cream unceremoniously splurged out the side all over his fingers and little plate beneath, despite the fact it happened literally _every time_ he ate them. Aziraphale seemed to think that approaching it with sheer optimism would fix the problem. Crowley would damn the cream to the worst depths of hell (probably admin) if it so much as _thought_ about staying intact under the pressure of Aziraphale’s teeth.

Aziraphale rushed to salvage the situation, licking off the cream and attempting a second bite, more pastry than anything else. He smiled regardless, chewing happily.

“Good?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale swallowed. _“Lovely._ Where on earth did you get them?”

Crowley shrugged. “Shop I saw whilst I was…out,” he said, instead of _‘the new patisserie that sprung up in that vacant spot five minutes away at most’_ , so Aziraphale couldn’t access their cakes unless Crowley was the one providing them. Sampling the full range would prove to be an excellent reason to drop by for weeks.

“Out?”

“Er yeah.” Crowley’s brain cell worked to think of a valid reason to be wandering the shops so close to Aziraphale’s. “I needed some...more…plant food.”

Aziraphale swiped a piece of cream from thumb. “Ah yes! How are the plants all doing?”

Crowley slipped into a scowl, glaring at Aziraphale as he finished the last of the pastry. “Still in recovery.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Come now Crowley, I didn’t do anything,”

“You _spoilt_ them!”

“They needed words of encouragement!”

“That’s the exact _opposite_ of what they needed! It’s bad enough when you do it, but you-as-me during the body swap got them all confused – they thought I was going to be _nice.”_

Aziraphale had added a macaron to his plate. He looked longingly at the second. Crowley reached across and plucked it from the box, popping it next to the first. Aziraphale blushed and cleared his throat, and Crowley became rather suddenly enamoured with a pile of encyclopaedias on the floor.

“You were far too soft on one of them in particular,” he said, waiting until he heard the sounds of Aziraphale chewing to look back up. “It’s leaves are practically wilting, at this rate it’s going to be Disposed Of.”

Aziraphale stopped chewing abruptly, eyes wide – faintly horrified, disapproving and exasperated all at once. “Crowley! You can’t do that to the poor thing!”

“I can, and I will,” Crowley said darkly. (But Crowley was lying. Well, at least partly – he _could_ indeed, but he didn’t, not to any of his plants. After all, couldn’t it be argued that _tricking_ the plants with threats of a proper shredding was far more devious behaviour than actually doing it? (Crowley was the only one arguing that. To himself. As he gently re-potted plants outside in their own little garden of deviance). Aziraphale didn’t need to know all that though – Crowley did have a _reputation,_ and the blasted angel seemed obsessed with calling him such insults as ‘nice’ and ‘kind’).

Aziraphale had that practically heartbroken look on his face, all downturned eyes and pinched mouth – macaroon crumbs on his top lip. Crowley entertained the brief fantasy of brushing them off with his thumb. He did nothing of the sort, of course.

“You don’t have to do that to it my dear – rather harsh isn’t it?”

“What else am I supposed to do? I certainly can’t keep it – the others will start getting Ideas,”

“Well I don’t know – plant it somewhere else?”

“No no,” Crowley said quickly “what sort of punishment is that?” The plants outside were getting too unruly if anything; he might have to stalk ominously past with a pair of shears to put them back in their place.

Aziraphale was thinking, tapping his finger on the side of his plate, a frown on his face. He made a little noise of consideration, then the tapping finger stopped, and Crowley could _see_ an idea forming.

“ _I_ could always look after it.”

“What?”

“The plant.” Aziraphale went to gesture excitedly, and the remains of the macaroon resting on his plate flew over the side in a hailstorm of crumbs. “Oh _crumbs_ ,” Aziraphale muttered to himself, appropriately, fussing with setting the plate down and brushing the crumbs from himself. The ones on his top lip remained.

“As I was saying my dear, _I_ could take the plant, and then it wouldn’t have to be…” he dropped to a stage whisper, _“disposed of.”_

“What are you going to do with a plant?”

“Look after it, obviously – get it back to tip-top condition! I’m sure I’ve got room for it here somewhere.”

Crowley raised a brow and looked around at the piles and _piles_ of books, cluttered surfaces, and the distinct lack of sunlight and plant-pot shaped places, and kept quiet.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, looking slightly off at nowhere, getting quite into the idea, “I’m sure it’d be lovely.”

Crowley groaned and buried his face in his hands, reminded quite vividly of a time when Aziraphale had first announced he was going to learn magic, the _‘quaint human party tricks.’_ Once Aziraphale had settled on something, it was quite hard to shift him. Hence his sense of style.

“You really want it angel?”

“Yes, really.”

Crowley shrugged. It’d save him from spending an afternoon up to his elbows in dirt anyway. “Alright then Aziraphale, consider it yours,”

“One plant saved from your devilish clutches!” Aziraphale declared. And then he leaned forward to grasp Crowley’s forearm. Crowley shivered. “Thank you dear.”

Crowley grunted, looking away from the sincere gratitude in Aziraphale’s eyes and landing on his lips. “You’ve got...” Crowley gestured to his mouth.

“Oh,” Aziraphale leaned back, and fished out a handkerchief.

“Yeah. Finish your cake angel.”

And so the next day Crowley waltzed through the doors of the bookshop, drooping plant in a small red pot in hand.

“Here,” he said, handing it over. Aziraphale took it with enthusiasm, prodding a little uncertainly at the soil and brushing the leaves.

“This should be no problem. A couple of small miracles and -”

“Ah ah ah!” Crowley interrupted. Aziraphale looked up at him. “No miracles. That’s cheating,”

Aziraphale blinked. “Ah. In that case I might have to consult some volumes from the gardening section.”

Crowley severely doubted there was a gardening section. Or any sections at all, except _‘those over there’_ and _‘the ones on that shelf’._

“Aziraphale - you were the gardener at Warlock’s,”

Aziraphale looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Yes, but that was more about the… _character_ than any, actual,” he dipped his head into his shoulders, “...gardening. A couple of quick miracles always sorted things out.”

“Oh hang about! So whilst I was doing _actual work_ nannying a _child,_ you were swanning about -”

“I wouldn’t put it _quite_ like that,” muttered Aziraphale.

“…cheating with miracles!”

“It was _not_ cheating Crowley, rather just…utilising my full scope of available skills.”

Crowley just tsk-ed at him. And they said demons twisted their words.

“Well there’ll be no _‘utilising the full scope of available skills’_ here – look after it properly.”

“While I respectfully disagree that gardening my way -”

“Cheating,”

Aziraphale ignored him. “- Is in any way at all not ‘proper’, this plant shall get the human treatment.” He lifted it a little, appraising its sorry state. “It can’t be that difficult.”

If Crowley was one to pray, he would have for the welfare of a certain plotted plant.

* * *

When Crowley dropped by a few days later it was perched rather precariously between books on the windowsill, looking a little worse for wear.

A few days after _that_ several of the leaves were browning.

A week later and it was restored to the limp state Crowley had gifted it in.

Crowley narrowed his eyes at it behind his glasses. “Angel!”

Aziraphale appeared from around a bookshelf. “Yes dear?”

“What’d you do to it?”

“Hmm?” Aziraphale questioned, looking around at everything except Crowley and a red plant pot. “Do to what?”

Crowley narrowed his eyes further, then realised his stare was rather ineffectual, and took the glasses from his face.

“Don’t lie to me Aziraphale. The plant.”

Aziraphale was throwing glances at Crowley. It took exactly two seconds for him to crumble.

_“Oh,”_ he said wretchedly, twisting his fingers together, “I don’t know what happened! The leaves started falling off and it was awfully dry, and watering it didn’t seem to do anything. I believe it was…quite…dead. So, I _may_ have,” he waved a hand, “miracled it just a tad better.”

“You revived it from beyond the grave is what you did.” Crowley sighed, looking fondly at the top of Aziraphale’s head as the angel stared rather dejectedly at the plant. “What did I say about cheating?”

“It’s _not_ cheating – I just restored it to the condition it was in when you gave it to me. It will flourish just fine from now on, you’ll see.” He gave the plant another sadder look. “ _Has_ to,” he mumbled under his breath.

Crowley gave an amused snort. “No need to be so dramatic angel.” They gazed at the plant in silence for a moment, and then because Aziraphale still looked disproportionately upset and Crowley _hated_ it when Aziraphale looked upset, he sighed and said to the empty bookshop:

“Plant mister.”

Aziraphale turned, cocking his head.

“Invest in a plant mister – and _use_ it. That should help reduce the amount of untimely deaths around here.”

Aziraphale blushed, clearing his throat. Crowley watched Aziraphale blush and also blushed, and absolutely _did not_ brush a wayward curl behind Aziraphale’s ear, instead shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Yes that – that sounds jolly good,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley pushed down the twin urges to find it endearing and to mock him mercilessly for it. He settled for a forceful exhale and a nod, because his singular braincell had decided to be even more exceptionally useless than normal.

It stopped functioning altogether when Aziraphale’s fingers curled around his wrist, and gave him a tentative squeeze. At that point Crowley almost choked.

“Thank you for the help Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley and his singular brain cell managed: “S’alright,” in response.

* * *

Crowley had spent the morning with absolutely no agenda at all, and had _just so happened_ to walk past the patisserie and by sheer accident – perhaps he’d tripped – he’d walked in and stood in the queue and ordered and asked them to add the pink ribbon to the box rather than the string because couldn’t they see he had _taste_ and walked out and settled the box nicely on the passenger seat, and by that point he had pastries on his hands and no choice but to drive the rest of the way to Aziraphale’s to share them.

So he swooped into the bookshop and stifled his call of _‘Angel!’_ when he heard Aziraphale’s voice, looking instead for the pesky customer who dared to command his angels attention – he’d even brought cake, for… _unspecified entity’s_ sake.

But the bookshop remained quiet except for Aziraphale’s voice, which sounded just a little nervous.

“So, what do you think?” Aziraphale was saying, “it _should_ be pretty straightforward, but the trouble is none of my plans ever seem to, well, _go to plan,_ as it were.” 

There was a pause, and a huff. “Yes maybe you’re right, maybe I should abandon the whole thing and just come right out with it.” Then came the sound of footsteps as Aziraphale paced, and when he spoke again it was with a determined lilt to his voice. “Crowley.”

Crowley started at his name, moving quietly until he could just see into the back room. He could see the back of Aziraphale’s coat, and across from him, their little plant.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Crowley. My dear. Demon…one? Oh that does _not_ work as well as _‘angel’_ ” he muttered. He seemed to straighten himself out, staring intently at the wall above the plant.

“Crowley. You see the thing is that I like you. A lot. Some may say love, even. And by some I mean myself, _I’m_ saying that I may – I mean I _do_ \- happen to, love…you, that is.”

There was a momentous pause. In reality it wasn’t. The pause itself was no different from any other, but if Crowley was to crack out the word ‘momentous’, it would be for this little soundless void. Well, soundless except for the thundering of Crowley’s heart, which seemed to have moved from his chest to somewhere between his mouth and right between his eyes. He must have missed that episode of _‘Location, location, location.’_

Aziraphale deflated a little. “Oh that was simply terrible. You understand the necessity of a plan now?” he asked the plant, wringing his hands. “Crowley is so much better at words than me,”

Crowley seriously doubted that, considering he appeared to forgotten all of them, in every language.

“He always says such _lovely_ things,” Aziraphale continued, “and then I – well I hesitate to say _panic.”_ Another pause. Another sigh. “Alright I panic. I’m trying to…not, this time.”

The plant sat, and said nothing. It would be quite astounding if it _did_ say something.

At that precise moment the phone rang, Aziraphale turned around, and Crowley remembered how to speak.

“Shit!” said the angel, just as Crowley started on “Aziraphale.”

The phone rung off. That would’ve seemed unusual if any of them were in the state of mind to question it.

Aziraphale’s eyes were comically wide, and Crowley had taken to hugging the pastry box to his chest.

“Hi,” said Crowley, like an idiot.

“Hello dear,” Aziraphale replied, equally as idiotic.

Crowley nodded for absolutely no reason.

“Did you,” Aziraphale began, “happen to hear all that, by any chance?”

“Yeah might have done,”

“Right.”

They shuffled uncomfortably. Crowley didn’t dare look away.

Then Aziraphale abruptly turned back, grabbing their plant. He walked up to Crowley and plonked it atop the pastry box in his hands, gabbling all the while.

“Right, so this is not how I planned this _at all,_ Crowley. There was going to be a speech and I was going to dig out that _lovely_ tartan cravat – you know the one - and your little plant is meant to be flowering -”

“Philodendron doesn’t flower.”

Aziraphale blinked, torn from his rant. “It doesn’t?”

“No.”

“Ah.”

“A speech?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Yes dear. You’re so good at grand gestures,”

Crowley sputtered. “I don’t -”

Aziraphale fixed him with a look. “Come now. You’ve saved me from being discorporated a great number of times now,”

“Well. Y’know I was just,” Crowley went to gesture and almost dropped the cake box and plant – its leaves rustled in fright, “in the area.”

He swallowed. “S’not my fault you’ve somehow neglected to pick up any street smarts in 6000 years – _someone_ has to keep an eye on you.”

“I’m,” Aziraphale swallowed, “glad that someone is - you Crowley,”

“You…are?”

Aziraphale gave a breathless laugh, blushing furiously. “Obviously. I put up with your _dreadful_ driving.”

Crowley’s first instinct was to defend his driving. Then he realised that was a _stupid_ first instinct.

“Oh right.”

“Yes,”

“So – your plan?”

“Nurse your little plant back to health and then, then the-the speech,”

“Like I heard,”

“Well more eloquently than that but - yes.”

Crowley needed several seconds to process. (He needed a few more thousand years, but unfortunately the linear progression of time wasn’t on his side).

“Is that,” Aziraphale began, “what you heard, okay?”

Crowley sputtered out several noises. “I, uh – sorry can I put these down?”

Aziraphale blinked, stepping back a little. “Oh! Yes of course. What _are_ they?”

Crowley juggled the plant and the box, sliding them both on top of a pile of books he hoped weren’t especially valuable. “The patisserie had -”

Aziraphale’s face lit up. “You brought _cake?!”_

“Yeah,”

Aziraphale was already diving to the box, carefully plucking free the bow and sliding the cardboard open. “Oh _Crowley_ these look marvellous!” He threw a defeated look over his shoulder, “you’ve bested me _again_ my dear.”

He turned to the plant with a little frown. “You really should have told me you couldn’t flower you know.”

Crowley took off his glasses and ran a hand through his hair. The situation had really slipped away from him. Jet off for a week in Ibiza without so much of a goodbye note.

Aziraphale was already bustling off into the back room, and Crowley didn’t know whether to follow, remembering exactly why he’d taken credit for awkward situations downstairs. Missed handshakes. A fourth _‘what’_ in response to something you didn’t hear. Cringe in all forms.

He’d decided on following and taken a decisive step when Aziraphale returned, two little plates between his hands. He offered a plate to Crowley.

Crowley took it dumbly, not bothering to tell Aziraphale that he’d bought them all for him.

Normally Crowley loved Aziraphale’s unbridled enthusiasm for eating cake, but -

“Angel, angel,” he grabbed Aziraphale’s plate and put it on the side. Aziraphale watched it go with an expression part outrage and part sheer loss. Crowley turned back, remembered his own plate, and took another turn to the side to deposit it. Finally, he was empty handed.

“Forget the cakes for a second. You were – you were saying something.”

Aziraphale looked up at him, then seemed to remember exactly what he had been saying. His expression tried for unreadable. Instead it displayed so much emotion Crowley couldn’t pick it apart. 

“I don’t have a speech,” Aziraphale said simply.

“I don’t need a speech,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale believed him.

“Then, what I was going to tell you,” he said, reached forward, and took Crowley’s hand in his. Both of them were trembling. Neither of them mentioned it. “Is that - I love you.”

Crowley squeezed Aziraphale’s hand. “So if I was to…do this,” he said, leaning forward and sliding his free hand through Aziraphale’s curls. Aziraphale’s eyelashes fluttered. “That would be alright?”

“More than alright,”

“And, this?”

He hated to unlace their fingers, but moved his other hand up to cup Aziraphale’s jaw, and the top of his bowtie tickled his hand.

“Yes.”

“Good. I love you too.”

Aziraphale smiled widely, flashing the white of his teeth.

“Oh _good.”_

They simply stood there for a second. Crowley was filled with the urge to brush Aziraphale’s cheek with his thumb. So he did.

“Would’ve been a bit awkward if I didn’t wouldn’t it,” he tried to joke.

“Just a little,” Aziraphale agreed, and then neither of them said anything else, as they swayed closer, and silenced the other with a kiss.

They didn’t know what they were doing. At all. Crowley’s braincell reminded him he had to move his lips, instead of just standing there dumbly. For the first time in his life, Crowley thanked it.

At some point, Aziraphale’s hand made its way to Crowley’s waist, and then his hip. The hand in Aziraphale’s hair slid down to his shoulder, and tugged him closer.

Crowley didn’t know when they stopped kissing, just that suddenly his lips were hovering _above_ Aziraphale’s rather than _on_ them. Aziraphale made a little contented noise, and shifted under Crowley’s hands.

Crowley opened his eyes and was treated to a soft smile. He allowed one of his own.

“Okay?”

“Very much so.”

“Any chance I could rescue our plant now?”

Aziraphale pulled back, but didn’t go far, twisting hands in Crowley’s jacket. He stared at Crowley seriously.

_“Please.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Tag yourself I'm Crowley's braincell.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this! Any mistakes and stuff are mine, and kudos/comments are really awesome to receive! So don't hesitate to let me know what you think :)


End file.
